


Golden Letters and Faked Smiles

by Zorro_sci



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Banner had a screwed up childhood, Developing Relationship, M/M, Memories, Tony Stark had a screwed up childhood too, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2519501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zorro_sci/pseuds/Zorro_sci
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce finds an old photo album among Tony's books.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Golden Letters and Faked Smiles

Bruce pulled an old leather book off of the shelf in Tony's study. The word "memories" graced the cover in golden cursive. He wasn't quite sure what had drawn him to the book, or why he felt the desire to leaf through it, but his curiosity had gotten the best of him.

He turned through page after page of photographs of young Tony. Newborn Tony wrapped in a hospital blanket, baby Tony held proudly in his mother's arms. A few more pages, and now picture-Tony is seven or eight. There he is beside the first robot he built. In another photo he's holding up an award for a school science fair. On the following page, Tony and his dad are working side by side in his father's workshop. He turns another half dozen pages and now Tony is a young teenager. He stands stiffly in his cap and gown, holding up his high school diploma. Below it he holds up his acceptance letter to MIT. The opposite page shows his parents standing with him in front of the gates of MIT; both of them beaming with pride. The series of snapshots catalogued all of Tony's major accomplishments and offered snippets of what life must have been like for the billionaire when he was young. 

Bruce supposed that it wasn't surprising that Tony had a book like that. Full of memories and photographs. Many people did. Still, it seemed to be more proof of that he and Tony were never meant to be. Although he had been pining for the engineer for some time, he had never found the courage to tell him, and now he was fairly sure that he never should. Tony should be with someone less broken. Someone with their own memory book, and not someone like Bruce who had never had a photo album, and even if he had no one would want to see what was inside.

Any photo album of Bruce's childhood wouldn't be filled with a smiling family, or proud moments. It would be filled with a scared, battered kid, an equally scared woman, and a threatening, violent, drunken man. There would be no awards or accomplishments because Bruce did his best to hide those. He learned from a young age that bringing home any sort of acknowledgement was asking for trouble. There would be no graduation photos, because by that time, his mother was dead and his father was institutionalized. In his memory book, there would be nothing but despair, misery and fear. That was what Bruce's childhood had been. 

"Well, this is embarrassing . . . I was hoping you'd never find that," Tony said from the doorway.

"Why?" Bruce asked, turning toward his best friend with curious, dark eyes. 

He couldn't understand why Tony would be embarrassed. The book was a testament to his brilliance, even at a young age, and there were times Bruce would have given anything to have have something even vaguely resembling the life shown within its pages. 

"Because it's filled with bullshit. Staged, press-worthy moments where we all played happy family because the world was watching. It gives the impression that we were some kind of Norman Rockwell painting, when really my parents couldn't wait to send me to boarding school and get me out of their hair," he commented bitterly.

Bruce stared at him a moment and blinked. That thought had never occurred to him. Was everything he had just seen painted smiles and publicity stunts?

"The truth is my parents were too busy to care about me unless they could get some good press out of what I'd done. My father spent all his time working and looking for the great Captain America, so he pretty much forgot I existed. And my mother was so bored and lonely she drank herself into oblivion most days, and was little more than a shell. I realize that's a bit dark and all, but it's the truth . . . I know, poor little rich boy . . . I realize I had a lot more than a lot of people . . .but it was still a pretty shitty childhood, and I was hoping you'd never have to know about it . . .or how screwed up I really am. I guess I didn't have to tell you about all of that, but it seemed wrong not to, even if that means scaring you away," he admitted.

"Are you kidding? Haven't you read my file?" Bruce asked incredulously.

"Sure. You worked for the army, a gamma-experiment you were working on went wrong, enter Hulk, you were held by Ross, and then you escaped and traveled the globe trying to avoid him," Tony recited.

"I was talking about before that . . . You mean my file didn't mention my childhood?" Bruce questioned.

"Not that I recall," Tony replied.

"Believe me Tony, I get screwed up childhoods. My father, he wasn't a very nice person. He was a drunk. He thought I was some sort of monster, because I was smart, so he beat me for it. He beat my mom too whenever she tried to stop him, until one day he beat her to death. 

Then I got shipped off to live with my aunt and uncle, who were nice and all, but I knew they never really wanted me. They gave me a place to live, and made sure I was taken care of, but other than that they ignored me. They took me in out of guilt," Bruce remarked evenly.

"Well, that sucks," Tony said, unsure of what else to say.

"I'm just saying, Tony, if anyone should be scared away, it definitely should be you. I mean, I've got enough baggage to fill a semi-truck trailer," the physicist chuckled humorlessly.

"And yet, whenever I see you, all I want to do is . . . " he trailed off as he captured Bruce's lips in a kiss.

"What was that?!?" Bruce asked as their lips parted.

"A kiss?" Tony said with mock-uncertainty.

"Tony . . ." he warned.

"What?!? I like you, and I'm tired of pretending I don't, because I'm pretty sure you like me too. Give me one reason why we shouldn't," Tony countered.

"Didn't you hear anything I just said?" Bruce remarked in disbelief.

"Yeah, so, you had a screwed up childhood. I did too. But I figured we could leave that behind us, and make our own memories," he said, punctuating the thought by throwing the album in the trash can.

Bruce stared at the binned book for a few disbelieving moments, before he decided that Tony was right. He didn't need to let the past hold him back from making a future with Tony. A future that would hopefully be filled with far better memories than either of them had experienced so far.

"Why don't we start now?" he returned, leaning in toward Tony to initiate another kiss.


End file.
